Adani hits back at activist calls for insurance boycott

ADANI Australia is being targeted by environmentalists on a number of fronts in their quest to establish its Carmichael Coal mine.

The latest hurdle it's facing is coming from Greenpeace's 'Unfriend Coal' campaign which is urging insurance companies to rule out providing insurance services for the project.

Adani released a statement addressing this latest line of attack.

"Our insurance arrangements, like most businesses, are commercial-in-confidence," an Adani spokesperson said.

"Like any other Australian organisation, Adani Australia ensures we have the insurance necessary to cover our various business activities.

"The campaign is being run in Australia by the activist group Market Forces that pressures companies in an attempt to get them to change their legal and legitimate business models."

According to Adani, Market Forces was closely aligned to the Sunrise Project, the foreign-funded activist group that is central to anti-coal campaigning in Australia which receives undisclosed donations from US-based charities.

"Carmichael mine will ramp up over time to produce 27.5 million tonnes of coal per annum in stage one, equivalent to just 0.5 per cent of total world thermal coal demand in 2017."

Adani said Australia's primary energy consumption was dominated by coal (around 40 per cent) and coal accounts for approximately 75 per cent of Australia's electricity generation.

"The fact is that coal underpins the high quality of life we enjoy in Australia," an Adani spokesperson said.

"This Christmas Australians will be cooking their Christmas feasts, cooling their drinks and turning on their Christmas lights using electricity, three-quarters of which will be generated by coal.

"The International Energy Agency's latest coal market report, Coal 2018, shows global coal demand looks set to rise for the second year in a row in 2018, and is forecast to remain stable over the next five years.

"We believe providing a sustainable energy mix to meet increasing energy demand will play a critical role in improving the quality of life in developing nations and sustaining it in the developed world, which is why Adani invests in both thermal and renewable energy generation."

As India's leading solar power generator and manufacturer and the owner of the Rugby Run solar farm in Australia, Adani acknowledged that renewables will play an increasingly important role in our future energy mix, but said it was important to ensure our energy sources are reliable and affordable, and that was where coal would continue to have a critical role to play.

"Having announced finance, we are continuing to get on with creating jobs and the economic benefits associated with the Carmichael Mine and Rail Project," an Adani spokeperson said.